Our Son, the Halfa
by The Full Catastrophe
Summary: A one-shot collection exploring Danny's relationship with his parents - especially those times when ghosts seem bent on destroying it.
1. Our Son, the Halfa

_**Our Son, the Halfa**_

"Danny?"

"Uh, hi, Mom."

Danny Fenton grinned sheepishly as he stuck his head into the room. He wasn't about to step off of the stairs and into the lab until he was absolutely sure nothing was going to blow up or shoot at him. Despite being raised around his parents' wacky and hazardous experiments, he had never stopped being wary of anything with the name "Fenton" in front of it.

"What are you doing down here, sweetie?"

"Well, it's getting kind of late, and Jazz and I were wondering about din-"

"That's it!" Jack's voice boomed, cutting Danny off mid-sentence. The huge, orange-clad man quickly stood, holding up a long page of blueprints. "Maddie, don't you see?"

"What is it?" Maddie asked, also leaping to her feet. She crowded next to her husband to get a better look at the blueprints, her son forgotten.

"…ner. Jeez," Danny muttered. "What other kid is second in their parents' eyes to a ghost portal?"

He glared at the self-proclaimed ghost hunters ("self-proclaimed" because they had never seen, much less hunted, a ghost) and at the device in question. To Danny, it just looked like a hole in the wall – a sleek, metal-sheathed, wire-filled hole, but still, a hole. His parents had spent the last ten years designing and building this contraption. Where they got the money for their shenanigans, Danny could only guess. He always supposed some fruitloop out there must have believed in the Fentons' brand of crazy enough to fund them.

"We didn't plug it in! Hah!" Jack's whole body shook as he laughed; Maddie did not seem quite as amused. Her face pulled into a disapproving frown under her hazmat hood and goggles.

"Jack, dear, are you saying we've spent the past eight hours trying to start the portal, and it wasn't even plugged in?"

"That's _exactly_ what I'm saying, Maddie!" He grinned. "And here I thought it was broken."

His wife sighed. "This is the last time I leave the assembly to you," she growled, but Jack didn't seem to hear, already racing to the industrial-sized plug buried under a mountain of wires in the corner. He quickly found the plug and its port and, holding the two cords up in front of his face, connected them.

Danny cringed and closed his eyes, expecting the worst. He went as far as to cover his head with his arms. However, after several seconds, it became clear that nothing was going to happen. Nothing had blown up, but also, the machine hadn't even started.

All three sets of shoulders in the room drooped – Maddie's and Jack's with disappointment, Danny's with relief.

"Oh well, looks like a bust, now how about some dinner?"

Again, Danny's words were ignored. He groaned and banged his forehead on the wall.

"I just don't get it, Mads," Jack said, voice morose.

Maddie came to her husband's side and reached up a reassuring hand to his shoulder. "Now, are you _sure_ everything else is in place? No more switches? Everything's plugged in?"

"Of course I'm sure! I may be an idiot sometimes, but not so much an idiot that I'd forget to plug in _two_ cords."

"But what else could it be? We've been pouring over the blueprints for hours, double-checking _everything_."

Danny watched as the two inventors simultaneously fell into their chairs, backs to one another, staring at opposite corners of the room. After a few minutes of them not moving, Danny cleared his throat. Then, he waved. Then, still not receiving a response, he left his comfort zone and walked into the lab.

"I thought we were finally going to see a ghost…"

"Our whole careers were building to this moment. This is what we went to college for!"

Jack heaved his shoulders in a sigh. "Maybe we're just not cut out for this… I mean, it's not like any of our inventions ever worked, anyway. We should just give up ghost-hunting, once and for all."

"I hate to say it, but you may be right."

It was worse than Danny had originally thought. He had never seen his parents look so defeated before. No matter how many times they failed, no matter how many times reality smacked them in the face and screamed, "Ghosts don't exist!" they had always kept blundering confidently forward. Now, for them to be questioning their careers? It was like any other person questioning gravity.

Danny wanted to be happy about this. He didn't know how many years he and his sister had spent trying to convince his parents of the very conclusion they had now come to on their own. But, no matter how much he wanted to be happy, he was finding it strangely impossible. It was just hard to see them looking so _sad_. No kid was supposed to see this side of his parents.

That is why, against his better judgment, Danny said what he did next.

"Maybe I could take a look?"

As expected, _this_ got their attentions. Fidgeting under their disbelieving stares, he continued. "I know I don't really know anything about ghost-hunting technology, but, well, maybe it would help to have some outside input. You guys are so into this invention that you're probably missing something really obvious. After all, you did forget to plug it in."

"Danny," Maddie said slowly. "Are you saying… you want to help us with our work?"

Though he knew he would regret it: "Basically."

Suddenly, Danny experienced the sensation of being crushed. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was only his dad hugging him.

"Maddie, did you hear that?! Danny wants to help with the ghost portal! I knew this day would come!" He set Danny back on his feet, and, wiping a tear from each eye, said, "I'm so proud of you, son."

Danny had always wanted to hear those words from his dad. And, while he had been expecting them to come in another situation – say, graduating from college or perhaps becoming the first person to walk on Mars – it still made Danny smile.

"Now, this might be dangerous," his mom said. "We don't know what will happen if we do manage to break the barrier between the human world and the ghost realm. You'll need to wear your hazmat suit."

Danny's smile twitched. "Oh, yeah. Great." He thought he had gotten rid of that thing.

Before long, Danny was dressed in a skin-tight jumpsuit, white with black gloves and boots, a black collar, and a black midsection. There had also been an image of a smiling Jack Fenton adorning the chest, but Danny quietly removed and disposed of it.

Maddie and Jack stood back, faces warm as they admired the child whom they were certain was now going to follow in their footsteps.

At this point, the eldest Fenton sibling, Jazz, came into the lab. Seeing that her younger brother had not only failed in his mission to rouse the parental figures for dinner but had been so far lost as to be caught up in their nonsense, she at once spun around and retreated up the stairs. "I guess I'll just order pizza!" she called back irritably.

_Jazz is going to kill me for this_. Danny could hear the lecture now – what had he been thinking, encouraging them? It would surely set back the 'progress' Jazz had made with them by years.

He sighed, shook his head, and turned to the giant metal hole in the wall.

"Here goes nothing." _Literally_.

His mom stopped him. "Don't you want to look at the blueprint first?"

Danny mentally slapped himself. "Oh, yeah, right."

Jack and Maddie spread the huge blueprint out on the nearest and cleanest lab table and stepped back to watch what Danny did next. The teen was at once overwhelmed by all of the intricate white lines that spread across the page. The only thing that immediately made sense to him was the small doodle in the corner of a blob-like ghost leaping out of the portal.

He took a deep breath. It took several minutes, but soon the lines began to make some sense. He felt pressed for time, what with his parents staring at him from across the room, so as soon as he was familiar with the basic layout, he turned to the monstrosity.

"Okay." He cracked his neck on either side, popped the joints in his fingers, and set to work.

Danny really had no idea what he was doing, but he followed the technological instincts he had been imbued with, being born into the generation he was, as he checked over all of the wires and plugs, making sure nothing was loose. He unplugged and re-plugged the power source. He made sure all of the colors matched up with their ports. Actually, he did everything he could think of to make sure he remained on the _outside_ of the portal.

As he worked, he couldn't help but think about what would happen if, against all odds, the ghost portal _did_ work. What if ghosts really did exist, and the Fentons became the first people in the world to open a functioning portal to their realm? The idea was a little exciting – not that Danny would ever admit that.

It was with great trepidation that, fifteen minutes later, he was forced to go inside.

The interior of the portal made even less sense than the exterior. It was like giving Abe Lincoln a computer tower and asking him to explain what was wrong with it. But, Danny played his part and made it _look_ like he was trying to fix the portal. At the very least, he could see that he had revived his parents' spirit.

_Just wander around in here for a few minutes, Fenton, and your job's done_.

Then, he tripped. The cold, hard, metal floor greeted his face with a smack. Vaguely, he heard his mom calling to him, "Danny? Sweetie, are you okay?"

"Fine," he grumbled. "I just tripped." Danny swiveled his head toward his feet and saw that the culprit was a fat monkey wrench. He grabbed it and tossed it out of the portal. "But watch where you leave your tools!"

"Oh. Whoops."

Danny could imagine his dad rubbing the back of his neck and his mother's sharp look. The boy chuckled softly and pulled himself to his feet, grabbing the wall near him for support. He was confused when he felt the wall sink slightly under his hand, but he didn't think too much of it until he was on his feet again and pulled away.

Lights flickered on inside of the machine, and it began to hum as electricity funneled into it. Danny looked at where his hand had been and saw a large red button labeled, "ON".

"Ghost Portal activated in three…," said a loud robotic voice resembling his mom's. "Two…" Before he could comprehend the words or register the shouts of his parents, Danny's world dissolved.

* * *

The Fenton Portal flashed brightly, momentarily blinding Maddie. Then an agonizing scream met her ears, one she recognized as belonging to her son – a sound she never thought she would have to hear. Horror curdled her blood.

"_Danny!_"

Maddie stumbled forward, only barely aware of Jack's arms holding her back. By the time her vision cleared, she could see a swirling green vortex filling the Fenton Portal. Danny's scream spiked and cut off, and suddenly a figure was blasted out of the Portal, straight into Maddie and Jack, throwing all three people back into the opposite wall.

Jack took the brunt of the impact, but Maddie was still winded. Blearily, she looked down at the person lying in her arms. She saw a head of white hair that was faintly smoking, tendrils of green floating up into the air from the head and shoulders. Even through her hazmat suit, she could feel how cold this person was.

Gently, she placed him on the floor in front of her, unnerved by how light he was, so light it was as if he would float away at any moment. She heard Jack groan behind her and felt him stand. He limped around and knelt across from her, on the other side of –

"Danny?" he whispered.

Maddie nodded. The colors of his hazmat suit had been inverted, his hair had turned white, and his whole body seemed to glow with an ethereal light – but it was unmistakably Danny. Maddie removed one of her gloves. She brushed his face with her bare fingers and immediately jerked back. His skin was like ice.

It was then she realized he was not breathing. Panicked, she pressed her fingers against his neck.

"Jack," she choked out a few seconds later. "Jack." Tears began to stream down her face. "He's… he's…"

Maddie looked up to her husband – her normally boisterous, cheerful, booming man. He was staring blankly at their son, his entire body limp. His face had taken on a sickly gray hue.

"We did this?" he said, voice no more than a breath. He looked at his hands. They trembled like dry leaves.

Maddie swallowed, found she could not speak, and simply nodded. Her sweet, sweet boy had wanted nothing more than to help them, to make them smile again and earn their approval, and their invention had… Maddie curled forward until her head rested on her son's cold, quiet chest, and she began to sob.

"What's going on? I heard a scream."

Maddie flinched and looked up to the staircase, where her eldest child was watching them. She saw Jazz's eyes scan the scene, flicking from the glowing Ghost Portal, to her weeping parents, and finally to the unmoving figure lying between them.

"Is that… don't tell me you… What have you done?"

The girl rushed forward. She shoved her mother out of the way and began to check Danny's vitals. Though obviously disturbed by his body temperature, by his dramatically altered appearance, she did not hesitate to begin performing CPR. "What are you waiting for?" she said while pumping her hands on his chest. "Call 911!" She plugged his nose and breathed into his mouth again before moving back to his heart.

Maddie had just begun to push to her feet when she heard a groan. Then – "Ow! _Jazz_? What the heck are you doing?"

Jazz yelped and scrambled back a foot. "Danny!"

Groaning again, Danny pushed himself up with his hands until he was sitting straight. He cradled the side of his head and looked around at them. His eyes met Maddie's; they were bright, fluorescent green, just like ectoplasm and just like the Portal that was glowing behind them, casting the room in its light.

"What happened?" Danny asked. His voice echoed slightly, like he was talking to them from a cave.

"Danny, you…" Jack trailed off, and he mutely pointed one finger at the Portal.

Danny turned to look where his father was pointing. His jaw dropped. "Is that… you mean… it worked?" A grin spread across his face. "It actually worked! Awesome! Does this mean – is that really – the ghost world?" He looked back at them, seeking confirmation, but frowned when he saw their pale, tear-streaked faces. "What's wrong with all of you? It's like someone died."

Maddie's brain was stacking up all of the observations she had made so far: glowing skin, low body temperature, decreased density, ectoplasmic residue in the irises, echoing voice. She crouched next to her son and pressed her fingers against his neck again. There was still no pulse.

This was not their son. In all likelihood, his body was still lying on the floor of the Fenton Portal, and the Portal had shot his ghost out into the real world.

His ghost.

Meaning, Danny really was dead.

Danny grabbed Maddie's hand and pulled it away. He stared at her with those intense green eyes, a question burning in them. "Why are you checking my pulse?"

The words left her numb mouth before she could stop them. "You're dead."

Neither Maddie nor Jack had ever seen a ghost. They had seen evidence of the creatures – video recordings of objects moving on their own, records of temperatures inexplicably dropping, even ectoplasmic goo left at the scene of a haunting, smeared green and glowing across floors or walls. They _knew_ that ghosts existed, and that was why they had been working on building a ghost portal for the last twenty years, starting with the prototype they had first built in college, back when Vlad Masters was still on their research team. If they could directly access the ghost realm, they could observe ghosts in their natural habitat or even bring the ghosts into a controlled environment in the human world to be studied. Maddie had been anticipating seeing a ghost since she was young.

She had not expected the first ghost she saw to be one of her own children.

"What? I'm _dead_? You're kidding." Danny laughed weakly.

"Mom, what are you saying?" Jazz argued. "Danny's obviously not dead if he's sitting here talking to us. He just looks a little different, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know the thing electrocuted me or whatever but-" He cut off mid-sentence. "What do you mean I look different?"

Jack grabbed his wife's arm. "Is this his ghost?" he murmured.

Maddie nodded, saying, "I think it is," just as Jazz pushed to her feet so that she towered over them all.

"That's enough!" she yelled, jabbing her finger in their faces. "Your obsession has gone too far! Don't you see Danny needs a doctor? But all you two can do is sit here talking about _ghosts_! It's because you couldn't stop thinking about ghosts long enough to think about your own family that this happened in the first place! C'mon, Danny, I'll drive you to the hospital." Jazz hooked her hand under her brother's arm and pulled.

Jazz used too much force, not anticipating how little Danny's body now weighed. Her gesture sent him flying into the air above their heads. As soon as Danny realized what was happening, he yelped and flipped onto his belly, trying to catch himself. The result was that he looked as though he were swimming in mid-air.

"What the-? _What's going on_?" His momentum carried him backward through the air, toward the stairwell. "Help!" Danny's feet reached the wall, but that did not stop him. He drifted straight into it.

Maddie and Jack had both jumped to their feet. Seeing that their youngest was about to float through the wall, they rushed forward and took his outstretched hands, just as his waist disappeared. They pulled him back out and helped him angle his feet to the floor. Danny touched down, and only when he was sure that he was not going to sink into the ground did he let go of his parents' hands.

Danny stared at his parents, and they stared back. He looked to Jazz, whose hands still hung uselessly in the air after trying to lift him from the floor. He raised his own hands to study them, flipping them over, back and forth in front of his eyes. Then he rushed to the mirror that hung over the sink in the back of the room.

Or, he tried to rush there; he put too much force into his footsteps and drifted back up into the air, arms pinwheeling around him. Maddie and Jack flanked him and guided him there with hands on his back and arms.

When Danny finally saw his reflection, his expression grew horrified. He reached out his fingertips to touch the glass, as if to make sure he was really looking at himself.

Guilt welled inside of Maddie as she watched this, and her heart thudded in her chest. The implications were beginning to loom in her thoughts. Ghosts - according to the scientists working with the Guys in White, ghosts were creatures driven by their obsessions that longed for the human world. They were almost always violent, and prolonged exposure to their presence produced ill effects in humans, either physically or psychologically. Even if the ghosts seemed harmless at first, or simply mischievous, their obsessive nature could cause them to change in a split second. In other words, ghosts were dangerous. In fact, one could say they were evil.

This was not her son, Maddie realized. Ghosts were nothing more than odd manifestations of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness. The creature before her was little more than the last thoughts of her son and his personality imprinted onto an ectoplasmic host. He might seem like Danny now, but eventually, his ghostly nature would rise to the surface and overtake everything 'human' about him.

Danny was dead.

Maddie tried to find Jack with her eyes, wondering if he had realized this, too. He was crying quietly, but overall his expression was shadowed. It was hard to tell his thoughts.

"I'm… dead?" Danny whispered. Rather, the _ghost_ whispered. Maddie could not allow herself to become attached to it. That would only make it harder than it would already be when the time came to exterminate it. A knot twisted in her chest and throat. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"Why?" the ghost continued. "I just. No. I haven't even started high school yet. This can't be happening."

"What happened, son?" Jack asked, sniffling. _Son_. Maddie tried to catch his eyes and shake her head at him, but he was focused only on the ghost. He had placed a comforting hand on its shoulder.

The ghost frowned. "I think I pushed a button, after I tripped. On the wall. A big red button. Then everything turned on. And, after that…" Its voice lowered to a whisper. "I felt like I was being ripped apart."

Maddie's eyes widened. A big red button? No, it couldn't be! "You put the 'on' button _inside_ of the Portal?" she said to Jack, tone livid. "What were you thinking?!"

Jack scratched his chin, eyes to the floor. "I thought it was a good idea at the time," he mumbled.

The ghost stared intently at its reflection. It began to shake its head. With no small amount of fear, Maddie realized it was becoming distressed. If their research was correct, it could move into its confused and violent state at any moment.

"No," it said. "This isn't me."

Just as Maddie began to formulate a plan of defense, something unexpected happened. A white ring of light formed at the ghost's waist. Maddie and Jack both jumped back. The ring flashed before splitting in two, and the two rings quickly moved up and down the ghost's body. Whatever they passed over was transformed, and soon the hazmat was replaced with jeans and a t-shirt, the white hair with black, and the green eyes with blue. With a light 'thump', the ghost's feet hit the floor again. Its skin no longer glowed, and its density had obviously increased.

The ghost gasped. It touched its face and then put its hand over its chest. Grinning, crying, it turned to Maddie and Jack and said, "I'm not dead!"

Maddie's jaw dropped. Shaking, she reached out a hand to check the vitals herself. The forehead was abnormally chilly but not icy like before, instead feeling like that of someone who had come in from a cold and blustery day. She felt for a pulse and found one, strong and regular beneath the skin.

"Danny?" she whispered. The ghost – her son? – wrapped its arms around her and buried its face into the crook of her neck. It started to cry openly.

Jack wrapped his huge arms around them both and squeezed hard. He called Jazz over to join them, and she did so after a moment of hesitation and confusion.

Maddie had no idea what had just happened, but it seemed like her family was still in one piece. Perhaps what had happened to Danny was nothing more than a short-term side effect to being exposed to so much ectoplasmic energy at once. After all, when Vlad Masters had been blasted in the face by their proto-portal, his hair had also turned white, and his eyes had glowed with ghostly energy. He had received a serious case of ecto-acne as well that had kept him in the hospital for several months, but he had recovered and was now doing extremely well for himself. Other than never regaining his hair's natural color, there had been no long term effects from the exposure.

She squeezed her son tightly to herself. He was alive.

He was still so cold.

At the back of the room, the Fenton Ghost Portal continued to swirl, green, opaque, and haunting.

* * *

_A/N: Hello, wonderful readers! I have sorely missed you. _

_So, I decided I am never going to promise update schedules ever again, because every time I think my life is in order, eight things happen to screw it up. (If anyone reads Blue Chair, think about Shen's relationship with Life. **Relatable.**) An update schedule is essentially me begging the Great Powers of the Universe to smite me. Last time I did it, I learned I have two unrelated, incurable, and potentially debilitating illnesses, which may in the future cause me to go deaf in one ear, become diabetic, and struggle to have children - and which really put a damper on my spring and summer months. So, lesson learned - NEVER AGAIN. _

_But I'm at last getting back into writing. I've been hacking away at a Merlin fic (125 pages so far, hot dog!) and drifting back to my Danny Phantom stories. Which prompted me to start this one shot collection, as I pump myself up to reread Treading Water and my uber-detailed top-secret PLOT OUTLINE (because Danny is literally in mer-prison right now, and we gotta get him out somehow). _

_This collection a mix of plot bunnies or scenes excerpted from longer works, written within about the last 5 years. I love writing stories about Danny's relationship with his parents, so all of the one shots will follow that theme. _

_This short, "Our Son, the Halfa", is a 2014 rewrite of a short I wrote in 2006 (back when I was, golly, 14 years old). It's obviously a story that's been done before, a lot, but I figured I might as well add my rendition to the pile. It was meant to be a multi-chapter fic, but nothing came of that and probably never will. _

_Next time, Maddie learns about Danny's ice powers - but only his ice powers. _

_T.F.C~_


	2. Great One

_Warning - depicts underage drinking_

* * *

**_Great One_**

Maddie closed the door gently on her husband. He was resting comfortably, after eating a plate of fudge and downing some pain killers. His leg was wrapped in a brace and propped up on several pillows. The sound of Jack's snores followed her down the hall.

She meant to go downstairs, to quiet her thoughts in the lab before taking the GAV on patrol. But before she reached the stairs, she came face to face with her son's bedroom door. The words she had said to him echoed through her mind: he had failed the eleventh grade; he was being held back; he would not graduate with his classmates.

He was sabotaging his future, and in no uncertain terms she had _promised_ him that he would never be an astronaut.

She remembered the look on his face – anger. He had so wanted to be angry. Maddie thought he was going to yell at her, but suddenly, all of that anger had evaporated, to be replaced by… resignation? Defeat?

Guilt stabbed her heart. Even if he had needed to hear those words, she hated the fact she had made him, her baby boy, look like that. Maddie grabbed the doorknob and quietly went into his room.

It was shadowy, lit only by the purple twilight sky outside and the light streaming in from the hallway. Danny, fully dressed and still wearing his shoes, was curled in a ball on the top of his blankets facing the opposite wall.

"Danny?" she said.

He shifted. "What?"

Maddie approached and sat down on the bed behind him. She laid a hand on his back, and he flinched. Maddie removed her hand.

"What's wrong?" she asked. Danny said nothing. Maddie sighed and tried again. "Danny, why are you doing this to yourself?" Still, he said nothing. "I'm not going to leave until you talk to me."

"Then you'll be here awhile," he said. His voice was bitter.

"Danny-"

"I don't want to talk to you."

Maddie pursed her lips. She knew she could easily scold him again, but that would only cause him to cut himself off further from her. She refused to believe he wouldn't talk to her. So, she waited.

Fifteen minutes passed, and neither said a word. True night fell outside. Maddie would almost believe her son had fallen asleep, but she could feel how tense he was beside her.

Her eyes felt scratchy. All of her aches from the battle that day were making themselves known. She needed to go to bed – even if it meant losing a waiting contest to a seventeen-year-old boy. Without a word, she stood and began to leave the room.

She had reached the door when she heard a strange, low hum begin to emanate from behind her. The temperature of the room plummeted, and the hairs on the top of her head stood on end. The air was filled by the distinctive presence of ectoenergy, crackling over her like static; cold, blue light swelled behind her, throwing her shadow into the hall.

Maddie spun around, falling automatically into a fighting stance. She did not see a ghost, but she saw her son, sitting up on his bed, at the very center of the source of the blue light. Concentric circles of light had appeared, stretching from the bedspread horizontally into the open air. They were interwoven with strange, glowing runes of ghostly origin. Danny wasn't moving, merely staring at the thing with wide eyes. His body began to glow blue, and then worse – it started to vanish.

Maddie sprinted across the room and leapt toward her son, intending to knock him out of the circle to the other side. But as soon as she entered the circle of light, her momentum rapidly slowed until her body hung in midair, outstretched fingers inches from Danny's shoulder. No wonder he hadn't been moving.

A deep cold bloomed at the center of Maddie's body and radiated outward. She watched, helpless, as her limbs took on the same blue quality of the circle and began to fade. Things sped up then; the blue light flashed, blindingly bright, and she dropped heavily to the ground.

"Great One!" said a deep, booming voice. It was followed by the pounding of dozens of objects against the ground. Maddie pushed up smoothly into a crouch and looked around.

She was no longer in her son's bedroom. Instead, she found herself in a massive field of ice, possessed by soft blue luminescence even against the darkness of the sky overhead. Columns of this glowing ice towered around her like stacks of desert rock.

Directly before her was a group, a semicircle of monsters. Each was at least seven feet tall, broad-bodied, covered in white fur and armor, wielding spears, and equipped with deadly fangs and claws. Their red eyes glowed, as did the rest of their bodies. A certain one of the beasts, greater and more fearsome than the others, stood at their head.

She caught movement in her peripheral. Danny was scrambling to his feet, gaping at the creatures. Maddie quickly straightened and shoved her son behind her back. "Stay behind me, Danny," she ordered. "These are ghosts."

"No duh," she heard him mutter, but she chose to ignore it. Maddie quickly went over her assets. Her only weapons were the ones built into her hazmat suit or in her utility belt. There were some small lasers, one or two handheld blasters, a few grenades, and various other containment devices, but all were limited in power. She could not fight these ghosts, even without needing to protect her son. Their best option was to escape.

The leader of the ghosts stepped forward. Maddie chose this moment to toss two choking ecto-bombs at the group of monsters; they exploded upon hitting the ground, releasing a noxious green gas. The ghosts immediately recoiled. Under this cover, Maddie grabbed her son's wrist and began sprinting the other way.

They appeared to be in a settlement of some kind. Ghosts of the same variety stood in igloos and huts, watching their escape. Maddie and Danny soon broke free of this, but she did not stop. She led her son down an icy, craggy slope until they came to the bottom. It seemed the settlement was on a plateau; at the bottom, ice stretched into the distance until it faded into darkness. Danny was fussing and pulling at his wrist, but Maddie paid no attention. She looked around for a safe place to hide and regroup and soon spotted it – the narrow mouth of a cave in the wall of the cliff-face. Maddie flashed her flashlight inside, confirming it was safe, no more than a small depression in the rock. She pushed Danny in, then cut a thin slab of ice with her Fenton Lipstick Laser and heaved this in front of the cave to obscure their location.

The inside of the cave was dim, its ectoplasmic glow muted. Danny was sitting on the ground, rubbing his elbow.

"Are you okay?" she said.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "I just hit my elbow in the middle of being thrown around like a sack."

"Young man," said Maddie tersely, "I just saved your life. You're in no position to be complaining. Now shush. They must be looking for us."

Maddie pulled her son to the back of the cave and waited there with him, eyes fixed on the entrance to the cave. Minutes later, a group of the ghosts passed nearby, calling out, "Great One!" They did not notice the cave, and soon were gone.

They waited for another five minutes or so. Finally, Danny shrugged off her grip and pulled away a few feet. "They're gone."

He was probably right. "Stay here," she said. She slid the ice slab out of the way and stepped outside to look around. As far as the eye could see, fields of ice stretched in all directions from the plateau, until they faded into darkness. Above, the sky was black and starless; ectoplasmic green clouds drifted across it, hazy like mist.

Despite her instructions, Danny appeared at her side. "We're, uh, in the Ghost Zone, huh."

Maddie buried her irritation. She couldn't afford to waste energy fighting with her son. "I think so."

"Have you ever been in here before?"

"No, I haven't." Even with the Specter Speeder, she and her husband had never deemed travel inside of the Ghost Zone safe enough to attempt. They had been meaning to make preparations for that, but with the increasing attacks of the last year, had been unable to find the time.

Danny nodded. His expression was tight. Maddie knew he must be terrified. She was not so confident herself; but it was her job to keep that from him. She needed to protect him at all costs and return him home.

Maddie put a hand on his shoulder. His head whipped around. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll get us out of here."

Danny swallowed. "Uh, sure."

"Let's go back inside and figure out our plan."

Inside the cave, Maddie cracked a glow stick and laid it on the floor. It lit the cave with ghostly green – ectoplasm was proven to give light several times longer than the normal chemicals. They sat at the back of the cavern, eyes on the entrance. Maddie's breath puffed in front of her. It was very cold in this realm, like the coldest winters she had experienced in Wisconsin. Her hazmat suit was conserving her body heat, for the most part, but the frigid air bit at her exposed face.

She looked to her son. He was sitting with his knees pulled up to his body, arms wrapped around his legs. He was wearing no more than a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. At this rate, he would freeze to death, and they wouldn't have to wait long for it.

"How are you feeling?" she said.

Danny shrugged. "Honestly? I'm kind of freaking out."

"I'm serious, Danny," she said. She pulled his hands into hers and began to examine them.

He yanked them back. "I am, too! What, am I not allowed to panic just a little right now?"

Maddie stared at him, eyes flicking up and down his body. Danny wasn't exhibiting any signs of being cold – none at all. He was not shivering; he was not stiff. In fact, even his breaths were not fogging the air. This was wrong.

"What?" he said irritably.

Maddie pulled her hood over her head and put on her goggles. They were equipped with thermal scanners; she turned those on now. At once, she could see her own arms and legs glowing orange against the dark blue background. Danny, however, was difficult to spot. Where he sat was a human-shaped ball of energy, light blue against the dark blue of the ice cave. Maddie looked at her own hands again – warm orange and red. Her scanners were not broken. This meant Danny was only slightly warmer than their surroundings.

She turned off the thermal scanners. Her hands were shaking, and it wasn't because of the temperature.

"Aren't you cold?" she said. Her voice rang hollow in her ears.

"I'm fine," he said gruffly. Then his eyes widened with panic. "I mean, of course I'm cold. We're in an ice cave."

Danny had realized something was wrong. But he wasn't surprised by it. Instead, he had decided to try to hide it from her.

Maddie stared at the glow stick on the floor, her mind frantically pulling details together to try to explain this. She changed the settings on her goggles by rotating the right-hand lens, turning them to the ectoplasm scanners. Looking again at Danny, he was clean of that tell-tale green energy, but an unfamiliar blue one, like what lit the snow and ice around them, burned at his center and radiated from there, filling his body.

She pulled her goggles off, letting them hang around her neck. What did it mean? Was he a ghost? Was he being overshadowed by one of those ice monsters?

"Mom?" said the other person in the cave, voice wavering. Was it really her son?

"Your body temperature is registering at minus ten degrees Celsius," she stated, monotone. "Just slightly warmer than the ice in this cave, but more than cold enough that you should not only be dead but frozen solid." She looked at him to study his reaction.

His eyes grew wide like saucers, and he stared at his hands, flexing his fingers as though to make sure he wasn't, in fact, frozen solid. "What?"

Maddie pulled an ecto-gun from her thigh strap and pointed it at him. It warmed up with a high pitched whine, the end glowing green. "Don't play dumb," said Maddie, "ghost."

'Danny' scrambled out of the line of fire, towards the mouth of the cave; Maddie followed him with her aim. "I'm not-"

"Tell me what's going on, because I think you know. You have some sort of 'cold core', and those ice ghosts summoned you here specifically. Where's my son, and how long have you been impersonating him?"

The ghost held its hands up in the air, a sign of surrender. It closed its eyes. "Look, I know this all seems really weird," it said. "But ask me anything. I'll prove it to you, _I'm Danny_." Maddie said nothing, glaring hard at the creature. Did it think she was so gullible? It opened its eyes, and now that it was away from the glow stick, Maddie realized the crystal blue eyes were glowing with icy, ectoplasmic light.

"If you hurt me, and find out it really _is _me, you'll regret it. So would you just listen to me for once?"

She did not lower the gun. "Then I'll ask you a question only my son could answer."

"And I'll be able to answer it!" it replied, exasperated.

She pursed her lips. "When we went to France, Jazz was in an accident. Tell me what happened to her."

The ghost's jaw dropped. Its eyes flickered across her face, panicked and lost. "We… we never went to France. Unless – no way! You went without me? Was that one of those times you dumped me with Aunt Alicia? But you took _Jazz_?"

The strength drained from her limbs. She lowered the gun and holstered it, letting out a long, shaky breath. "Okay. It's you."

Danny similarly collapsed. He fell backward onto the ice, groaning. "That was a horrible question! I really thought I was going to die."

"Danny, what is going on?"

Her son sat up again, too-bright blue eyes locked onto her. "Um. So I really don't know why those ghosts sucked me into the Ghost Zone."

Maddie narrowed her eyes. "Okay. What do you know?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and turned his head to face the ice wall. The gesture was so characteristic of her son that any of her remaining doubts fell away, to be replaced with worry. "Uh… um… it's like this…"

"Daniel James Fenton."

"I kind of, sort of, have ice powers?"

She blinked. Whatever she had been expecting to hear, it was not that. "Ice powers," she repeated.

"Yeah. Like, um…" He raised a hand in front of him, palm facing up. His eyes began to burn more intensely, and a few inches above his palm a whirling marble of ice began to form. At first it was no more than the size of a BB, but then it quickly grew until it was as big as a baseball. It dropped into his hand, and with a shy smile, he offered it to her.

Maddie took it in her hands. It was perfectly round and almost perfectly clear. She looked between it and her son, at a loss for words. Finally, she went with, "How long?"

His eyes trailed to the ceiling of the cave, searching his memories. "Uh… since a year ago, I guess? They came out of nowhere, really."

"This is what you've been hiding from your father and me?" Her son shrugged. She would have to interpret that as a teenaged 'yes'. "Why didn't you think you could tell us?"

He chuckled; it was nervous. "I guess I thought you'd call me a ghost and shoot at me."

Shame washed through her, like hot water in her veins. It was a slap to realize that her own son did not trust her – and with good reason. He had guessed her reaction exactly.

But this secret would explain so much. She tried to imagine having a secret power and no one to share it with; how he would feel alone, depressed; how he would begin to act out; how his grades might suffer.

It was her fault. Her son had felt afraid of her. How could she ever make that up to him?

"Danny," she said. She crawled to his side, placing the ball of ice on the floor and wrapping her son into her arms. "I'm so sorry."

He patted her back awkwardly. "It's... it's fine. It's not a big deal."

Maddie pulled back and held her son at arms' length, studying his face. His icy blue eyes refused to meet hers. "What does this power have to do with these ghosts that are after you?"

Danny swallowed. He was saved from answering, because at that moment the slab of ice behind him was lifted out of the way by one strong, fur-covered arm. It reached in and grabbed her son by the collar of his shirt, pulling him easily out of her grasp and out of the cave entirely. Maddie grabbed two guns from her thigh holsters and catapulted through the opening of the cavern, rolling fluidly into a battle-ready crouch, guns raised.

She was blocked from shooting the ghost, for it had her son wrapped in its arms, one of which was flesh and the other made of ice with bones suspended inside of it. The ghost looked like it was trying to crush Danny.

"Great One!" it cried. It held Danny out in its paws, so that he dangled in mid-air, appraised him, and pulled him in close again. If she were not mistaken, those bared, razor-sharp teeth were bared in a grin; and it was not crushing Danny, it was _hugging_ him.

And… 'Great One'? The ghosts had been yelling that ever since she and Danny had arrived here. Did they mean _Danny_? A ring of the yeti-like creatures stood around the mouth of the cave, and Maddie realized the one with her son was the leader she had seen earlier.

Maddie lowered her weapons, but she did not put them away. Simply, she did not know what was going on, and once again, they were sorely outnumbered.

The leader of the yetis placed Danny on the ground and rubbed the top of his head with a massive paw. Her son smiled, although it looked more like a grimace, and patting down his now badly ruffled hair said, "Uh, good to see you, too, Frostbite."

Maddie could not help but gape. They knew each other? Danny knew its _name_?

The ghost tilted its head to one side. "But why did you run away earlier? And," it looked past Danny to Maddie, "who is the human with you? Is she an enemy?"

At the word 'enemy', the company of yetis growled and brandished their weapons and claws at Maddie. The huntress noticed with unease that those claws were now coated in ghostly ice. She raised her blasters again, as futile as it seemed.

Danny waved his arms frantically at the creatures, stepping in front of Maddie, and she was struck by the wrongness of it all. For some reason, Danny was protecting her, not the other way around. Moreover, he was fearlessly opposing a group of ghosts that had even Maddie wary to face them. She wondered if she was dreaming. Had she actually gone to bed at the same time as Jack? But no – her aches from the battle that day were too real for this to be a dream.

"An enemy to ghosts?" said Danny. "Yes. An enemy to me? No. So don't you dare touch her." The yetis all obediently lowered their weapons, although the hostility in their red eyes did not leave them. The leader continued to stare at her, dubious.

"Who is she, if I dare may ask?" said the leader again, deep voice rumbling through the air.

"…my mom," said Danny.

Suddenly, all of the ghosts clapped their massive paws over their chests. "Welcome!" they shouted as one. "Great Mother to the Great One!"

Danny slapped his hand to his face and muttered something venomous under his breath. His eyes slid sideways to Maddie, and fear crept into them again.

The leader stepped forward and knelt before Maddie, head bowed and one paw over where its heart would have been, if ghosts had them. "Great Mother," it rumbled. "Welcome to the Far Frozen. I am Frostbite, the leader of this land. I humbly welcome you to our home."

"… nice to meet you," said Maddie. Eyes narrowed suspiciously, she straightened and holstered her weapons, although she could be ready to draw them in an instant.

The one called Frostbite stood again. He towered over her, probably more than seven feet tall. His maw parted in a grin. "I did not expect such an honor today," he said. Then, addressing the other yetis, "How soon can we prepare a feast?"

The yetis rattled their spears, clearly in support of that idea. Danny looked like he was in pain. "You really don't need to do that," he said, weakly.

"Nonsense!" replied the ghost, and he patted her son's shoulders with enough force to nearly knock the boy down. "I do not want your mother to think we of the Far Frozen treat our guests with anything but the best welcome."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Danny muttered. If Frostbite heard, he acted like he didn't.

"Come!"

And that was how Maddie found herself at the center of a company of ghostly snow monsters, her youngest child the only thing separating her from the leader of the creatures, as they marched up an icy staircase returning to the top of the plateau. She had a thousand questions for her son, but he was hanging his head and glaring at the ground, while she also was leery to say anything in the presence of their captors.

They reached the settlement at the top of the plateau. News of their coming must have preceded them – the entire population of yetis was there to greet them, or rather, to greet _Maddie_. It could not have gotten much more bizarre. The ghost yetis waved their massive arms in the air, cheering "Great Mother!" in chorus. Maddie just stared. Dimly, she was aware of Frostbite grinning at her over Danny's head. Danny, meanwhile, was red from the collar of his shirt to his hairline.

"My people prepare a feast," announced Frostbite. "Shall I take your esteemed mother on a tour of the village?"

"I'd rather you didn't," said Danny through his teeth.

"Don't be silly, Danny," said Maddie with false cheer. "Of course I want to go on a tour."

"Accompany us, oh Great One!" said Frostbite, and by wrapping one furry arm about his shoulders, gave him little choice in the matter.

The three of them broke from the other ghosts, but their red, glowing eyes followed the group through the village.

"Frostbite," said Danny. "Not that I don't appreciate all of this – because really, I do – but can't you just tell me why you brought me here?"

"That's a very serious topic for conversation," said the ghost. "Best for full stomachs and working minds."

"Of _course_ it is," Danny huffed. "I thought ghosts didn't eat?"

"We do not need to, but we like to on occasion," replied Frostbite. They stopped in front of an intricately wrought ice structure. Two particularly fierce-looking guards stood at either side of the entryway. They nodded at their leader, but the sight of Danny seemed to produce some feeling of weariness in them. It may have been Maddie's imagination. After all, ghosts experienced a highly limited range of emotions.

"This!" said Frostbite when they were inside, "is the most prized possession of the Far Frozen!" A golden chest sat on a pedestal of ice; two green flames burned on either side of it. With a wave of his hand, Frostbite raised the lid of the chest, and what looked like a scroll rose from its depths. It floated in the air, glowing faintly. It was clearly a ghostly artifact. Maddie's knowledge of them was admittedly limited, but if it was anything like the Crown of Fire or Ring of Rage involved in the Ghost King's invasion, it was probably dangerous and needed to be destroyed.

"The Infi-Map! Not only can it show its user every active portal in the Ghost Zone, it can take them there in an instant! We guard it without pause, but that hasn't stopped your son from stealing it on a number of occasions." Frostbite said the last part with a chortle, as though Danny stealing an extremely powerful artifact from a tribe of ghosts – not once, but several times – was a great joke.

Maddie gaped at Danny, but he was looking pointedly, stonily, at the floor. And he was not denying anything.

So, she turned back to the yeti leader. It was preposterous, but it seemed like she would be able to get more information about what was going on from the monster than from her own son. As long as she stayed on its good side, it seemed like it would prove a wealth of knowledge.

"You weren't angry?"

Frostbite laughed again. "Surprised, certainly! But he always returns it to us when he's finished with it. He even tracked it down across time and space when he lost it! The Infi-Map is not in bad hands when in the hands of the Great One."

Danny seemed to be trying to melt into the floor.

"Let's continue!" boomed the ghost. He ushered them from the room, and the ghostly map settled again into its container.

The next few buildings were home to a variety of things. There were stables for the giant ice worms and wooly snow mammoths that the yetis considered their steeds – yet more proof that Maddie was best off not fighting these ghosts. There were weapons storehouses, a smithy for the weapons, and a huge studio where different ice structures were crafted, not to mention a laboratory filled to the brim with advanced medical equipment and technology that seemed oddly out of place in a village that could have appeared in _Beowulf_. Despite the tour, Maddie's growing impression was that she had no idea what these ghosts might be capable of.

Then, near the rear of the village was a cave, broad-mouthed and shallow. Danny groaned when he saw it, which only made Maddie want to see inside it all the more.

"And this," said Frostbite, sweeping his arms out to either side, "is the monument my people have built to honor the deeds of your son."

Danny buried his face in his hands. "Can you just kill me and get it over with?"

"No need to be modest!" exclaimed Frostbite. He began to lead Maddie inside, when all of a sudden several huge icicles dropped from the cliffs overhead and crashed down in front of the entrance, blocking it completely.

"Oh no!" said Danny; the falsehood dripped from his voice. "The cave's blocked and we can't get in! Looks like we'll have to go back. Oh well, these things happen."

The ghost yeti must have been more naive than she had previously thought him, because he could not see anything suspicious in her son's words; or maybe Maddie, as his mother, had just had more experience with her son's personality.

"Hmm," said Frostbite, rubbing his chin. "That is unfortunate. We will have to return another time! For now, let us retire to the mead hall. I am sure the feast is ready."

Maddie was rooted to the spot in disbelief. The most crucial part of her son's secret life, blocked off? "Aren't you a ghost? Can't you just phase through the ice?"

"Ghosts cannot phase through ghost-world objects, oh Great Mother," said the yeti leader. "Only real-world ones."

Now _that_ was interesting. It also proved that any ideas she and Jack had had about the nature of the two zones were probably wrong. They had never suspected such a thing. But it did not make up for the fact that she was being kept from important information. She would have to corner Frostbite during this 'feast' and get the story from him another way.

On the way to the hall, Danny rather obviously put the yeti between him and his mother. Maddie hardly knew how to feel; she was exhausted and overwhelmed and more than anything wanted a minute to sit down and catch her breath. She thought she should be angry with her son for keeping such huge and dangerous secrets from her and probably lying to her repeatedly in order to do so. She was sure she would be angry eventually. But currently, her confusion and worry were outweighing that particular emotion.

What she did know was that her youngest child was caught up in the world of ghosts and had been changed because of it. Worst of all, he seemed entirely unaware of the danger.

They entered the mead hall and were greeted by a chorus of cheers and whoops. The hall was massive. Wrought of purple wood, it seemed as tall as it was deep, and the dimensions were too great to estimate. Rows of tables and benches filled the first half; then, there was empty floor; and at the head of the hall a particular raised table, perpendicular to the others with chairs only on one side, facing the rest of the hall. Frostbite shoved through the many ghosts to lead them to that table. On the way, Maddie caught glimpses of the 'food' that had been prepared, but she had never seen food in such colors or with so many tentacles. Well, except for the contaminated leftovers at the back of the Fenton Fridge that had mutated due to ecto-exposure. Foreign odors met her nose, and she could not decide if they were appetizing or stomach-turning.

She caught Danny's sleeve and held him back for one second. "Don't eat anything they offer you," she whispered to him.

He made a disgusted face. "You don't have to tell me twice. You didn't even have to tell me once."

Sadly, Maddie hadn't been so sure of that. So far, her son had been trampling over all of the warnings she and his father had given him about ghosts and the Ghost Zone. And ingesting ectoplasm was one of the quickest and worst ways to suffer ecto-poisoning. They knew this because it had happened on a number of occasions – usually idiots trying to get 'ghost powers' by eating ectoplasm. As if a human could have ghost powe-

Her thoughts screeched to a halt. Danny's powers were not of real-world origin. Maybe he wasn't a ghost, but his ice abilities were probably a side effect of ecto-contamination. Maddie only wondered what other, unpleasant side effects he must be suffering. Would that account for his mood swings, irritability, and exhaustion?

Frostbite sat at the head of the table in a great wooden chair, reminiscent of a throne. To his right he put Danny, and on Danny's other side, Maddie. Maddie was thankful for this in one sense – she was close to her son; but in another sense, she was less thankful. Now another, unfamiliar yeti was on her right. She hoped things like 'small talk' didn't exist in the Ghost Zone.

In front of them was a spread of exotic, toxic-colored, glowing dishes that must have passed as cuisine to ghosts. Maddie made a note to investigate ghosts' casual eating habits more closely. She had been given a plate – was that gold? – fork, and knife; and in a gold-streaked ice goblet was a clear liquid that gave off a quartz-like sheen.

Frostbite stood then, and he banged his ice-hand on the table. The hall quieted. He raised his own goblet and boomed, "A toast!"

"A toast!" the hall echoed, and all of the yeti ghosts stood and raised their goblets. Danny belatedly did the same, eyeing the contents of his goblet; so Maddie, of necessity, raised hers too.

"A toast!" Frostbite repeated. "In the last two years, the Great One has done much for our kind." _Two_ years? Danny said his powers had appeared a year ago. A glance from the corner of her eye showed her son wincing. More secrets – more lies. Maddie scowled. The ire she had predicted was beginning to show itself. Her son was going to be in a _world_ of trouble when they escaped this place.

Frostbite continued. "Without the Great One, our realm would surely have met its doom not once but several times over! Now, we have in our midst the hero's mother." Maddie jolted. They were going to toast _her_? Well, of course, this entire feast was in her honor. "Already she has proven herself a fierce warrior. It is easy to understand how the Great One became who he is today, when a mother as intelligent, brave, and honorable as she reared him."

Maddie blinked dumbly. Did this ghost have any idea who she was? She was Maddie Fenton, one of the world's most acclaimed ghost hunters, an enemy to its kind!

"Maddie Fenton," said Frostbite. _That answers that question_. Danny flinched so hard that the liquid in his goblet sloshed over the sides. "Although you are an enemy to ghosts, let us observe a truce while here in the Far Frozen. We will show you our best sides, and while we cannot speak for other ghosts of other realms, maybe we can change your mind about our particular kind."

Maddie's mind screamed at her that it was a trap. But, what could she do if it was? So, she smiled as best as possible, nodded her head, and raised her goblet. The yetis of the hall cheered and drank.

Maddie pretended to take a sip, but Danny did not bother to pretend. Stiff, expression petrified, he placed the goblet on the table with a loud 'clunk'. Frostbite also noticed this, but surely interpreted it differently than Maddie.

"Great One!" exclaimed the ghost, taking up the goblet again. "Maybe you do not know, but here in the Far Frozen, it is bad luck not to drink after a toast."

"I, uh, don't drink…"

"But you've never tried our liquid crystal! Come, drink with me to your mother's health!" Frostbite placed the goblet back in her son's hand and knocked his own against it. Surely Danny had the good sense to pretend to drink it…

…or not. Horror slid through her veins like ice as she watched her son draw the drink into his mouth and swallow it. Danny's eyes grew wide, and Maddie knew he had to be feeling the effects already. It would be like drinking battery acid. She frantically searched for any anti-ecto serums on her person. She found one in her utility belt and slid it into her hand, ready to administer it.

Danny lowered the glass, stared at its contents, then looked up at Frostbite, who was grinning expectantly.

"Woah," said Danny. Frostbite clinked his goblet against Danny's one more time and downed the contents. Danny blinked at his cup, and did the same.

Gasping, Danny set the empty goblet down, and his face, hitherto having worn expressions of irritation, embarrassment, or terror, stretched into a smile. Slightly awed, he blinked stupidly at the air in front of him; the light in his eyes bloomed, like ice forming on a lake.

"Danny?" said Maddie. Her fingers were numb around the serum.

"I knew you'd like it!" said Frostbite. He snatched a nearby carafe and poured himself and Danny more of the drink. "Again, a toast! To the Great Mother!"

Danny looked at her, and he raised his glass to her with a self-conscious smile. "To Mom." The pair of them drank with great swallows, as though racing to the bottoms of their glasses.

At that moment, the yeti sitting at Maddie's side stood and dragged his chair to the other side of the table, so that he was directly across from Danny. He placed the chair with a thud, took the carafe, and poured Frostbite, Danny, and himself a drink, letting the last drops of the jug drip into Danny's goblet. The yeti himself was well-armored and scarred across his right eye. Maddie immediately counted him as a difficult opponent.

He passed Danny the precariously full goblet. "I see you like our liquid crystal."

Danny's smile grew. "Snowdrift!"

"Good to see you, lad," rumbled the yeti. He turned his gaze on Maddie. His eyes were calculating, nearly suspicious. "And it is an honor to meet one of your parents."

Maddie measured her words. "I'm happy to finally meet you. It seems your people have been taking care of my son for a long time."

"We do our best," said Snowdrift. "Sometimes it isn't enough. But he is a strong pup."

Danny watched this exchange, sipping at the top of the glass. He didn't speak, almost as though he were waiting for a cue. He would probably interrupt the ghost as soon as it began to reveal anything particularly telling about his exploits here.

Frostbite, with his characteristic joviality, had begun to pile different foods onto Danny's plate. He poured a yellow sauce on something purple, speared a fork into it, and put it in Danny's hand. "Try this, and then drink just a bit of liquid crystal."

Obediently, Danny stuffed the too-big bite in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and drank. "That's really good!"

"You sound surprised, Great One!"

Danny laughed. "I am!"

"Then, try this!"

Maddie watched this, jaw tight. Her thumb rubbed the serum. Suddenly, she became aware that Snowdrift was staring at her. When their eyes met, he said, "You're wise, Great Mother, to not eat our food or drink our drink. Surely our fare would kill a human."

Danny choked. He pounded on his chest with one fist, and then gulped down some of the liquid crystal before gasping at his mistake and placing the goblet far across the table. It was almost empty – he had already had three glasses of the stuff.

"Why are you panicking, lad?" said Snowdrift. He poured more drink from a new jug into Danny's cup and handed it back to the boy. "You're not exactly human."

Something changed in Danny's face then. Maddie was not sure what to call it, although it seemed akin to blushing. His cheeks suddenly took on a bluish tinge, and frost bloomed across them. Combined with his brightly glowing eyes, the result was something, like Snowdrift said, 'not exactly human'. Maddie found she was having trouble breathing; she felt like a stranger in her own body.

Danny glowered into his goblet, which he had wrapped his hands around again. In a low voice, he grumbled, "I'm not a ghost."

"No, you're not that either," said Snowdrift. "Even so, I don't think a little ghost food will do you any harm."

Silence descended on the table. Helplessly, Frostbite looked between his companions, hovering on the edge of a word. He rose suddenly to his feet, his chair scraping back loudly over the floor, and clapped his huge paws together. "We need music! Nothing completes a feast in the Far Frozen like a rousing dance! Band!" he called. A group of yetis who were sitting at the edge of the open floor, plucking at strings and tuning wind instruments entirely made of ice, looked up. "Play a song for us!"

After a few shared mutters, the ghostly musicians began to play. Their instruments filled the hall with bright, sharp notes; the drums beat a steady rhythm, and soon yetis were whooping and crowding onto the floor. They locked hands with each other in huge concentric circles and begin to stomp about, kicking legs and raising arms and cheering.

Frostbite's grin returned. He obviously liked what he saw. Turning that grin on Danny, who was still staring pensively into his drink, he grabbed the boy's arm and yanked him to his feet.

"Wha-" Danny stammered. "Hey! I don't-" Whatever he said next was lost in the noise of the hall. Frostbite dragged Maddie's son to the circles of stomping ghosts, who were all several times bigger than Danny, and shouldered into the outermost ring. He took one of Danny's hands in his paw, and the neighboring yeti was more than happy to take the 'Great One's' other hand.

And like that, Maddie watched Danny desperately try to understand the steps and occasionally be lifted off of his feet when all of the yetis in unison raised their clasped hands into the air. The song galloped on, and the spinning circles swept Danny away across the room.

Snowdrift, much like Maddie, had watched the whole exchange from the high table. Chuckling, he turned back around in his seat and took a swig of the liquid crystal.

"You aren't going to join them?" said Maddie, drawing her eyes off of the point where her son had finally disappeared.

"I'm not much of a dancer," said the yeti. "Neither is your son, it would seem."

Maddie made a noncommittal noise and pursed her lips. Snowdrift's earlier words were still ringing in her head.

Danny was… not entirely human? Because of his ice powers? Did that mean – was the problem deeper than simple ecto-contamination?

Of course, it had to be. With ecto-contamination, the symptoms ranged from illnesses like 'ecto-acne' all the way to impermanent mutations, when the person affected took on ghost-like qualities for a short time. While problematic, the symptoms faded once the ectoplasm faded from the body – which it always did, because ectoplasm was not compatible with human physiology. It faded, or in the worst case scenario, overwhelmed and killed the victim.

But with Danny… it seemed he had had his powers for two years, or more. They had integrated with his body to the extent he had a 'cold core', not so dissimilar to a 'ghost core'.

_I'm not a ghost._

_No, you're not that either._

Maddie sighed. A headache beat at her temples; her wounds from earlier that day – from yesterday? – pained her dully in the frigid air. She was too exhausted to process all of this.

And suddenly, in the midst of that hall of ghosts, somewhere in the middle of the Ghost Zone, Maddie became aware of how alone she was. Alone, and totally powerless.

"So, how are you liking the Ghost Zone, huntress?"

Maddie blinked and glanced up at Snowdrift. The scarred yeti was 'casually' twirling something tentacled around his fork, but his eyes watched Maddie carefully, and his maw was twisted in a smirk.

She straightened in her seat before answering. "It's different from what I expected."

"And what did you expect?"

She wondered how much she could say without insulting him. Part of her was amazed simply by the fact she was having a civil conversation with a ghost – civil in that neither was physically attacking the other. There were definitely veiled barbs in their words.

"I didn't imagine there would be distinct regions – ghost groups with constructions and cultures…"

Snowdrift bared his teeth. "Just a bunch of violent, lawless thugs floating around in a void, eh?"

That was actually not far from the truth. Maddie shrugged, deciding not to answer. She twirled the anti-ecto serum, still clutched in her fingers, and pocketed it. "You and Danny seem to be on close terms," she observed.

"We are," the yeti nodded. "I'm the one who trained him to use his cold core. He never mentioned me?"

So, he really did have a cold core. "I'm afraid he hasn't mentioned any of this part of his life to me."

The ghost grunted, stuffing the tentacled something into his mouth and chewing. "I figured as much." At Maddie's raised brow, he explained, "You've been watching him like he might break at any minute. You obviously don't know what your son is capable of."

She bristled. "Care to fill me in?"

Snowdrift snorted. "I don't think the 'Great One' would appreciate that."

Just then, the 'Great One' appeared on their side of the room again. The song ended, and all of the yetis stopped to cheer and clap. Danny, grinning, stumbled over to the high table, Frostbite on his heels. Behind them, a new song was beginning, just as energetic as the last.

The chief of the Far Frozen ghosts poured Danny, Snowdrift, and himself another glass of liquid crystal. All three clinked the glasses and downed them. How many had Maddie's son had now? Four? Five? She stared him, at the changes it was producing in him. His eyes positively blazed with cold blue; his skin had paled; his cheeks were flushed blue; even the tips of his hair were frozen together, sparkling with frost.

He caught her staring, and his eyes widened like he had forgotten she was there. "Mom! Dance with us!" Without waiting for her answer, he hurried around the table and grabbed her by the arms to drag her to her feet.

"Danny, I…"

"Come on! When's the last time you had fun? You," he said, words thick on his tongue, "need a break."

"And _you_, young man, are drunk."

Danny blinked, looking amazed. Then he broke into a fit of laughter. "Awesome."

Maddie couldn't be sure of the reason. Was it her exhaustion? The surreal situation? Or was it simply that it had been months since she'd seen a genuine smile on her son's face? Whatever the cause, she gave in and let him drag her into the throng of ghosts.

The yetis, equally as drunk as her son, and many of them more so, welcomed her with exuberant cries. Maddie's hands twitched for her guns. But, then her left was gripped tightly in her son's hand, and her right was taken up by Frostbite, and she was swept into the dance.

By the time they were taken to their bedchamber, Danny was barely conscious. Maddie led him, one of his arms slung over her shoulders so he wouldn't trip and fall on his face – again. He happily let himself be carried along, eyes half-closed and smiling.

She laid him on one of the three beds in the room – a spacious if simple chamber with stone walls and a green ectoplasmic fire burning in the hearth. Danny mumbled something and burrowed halfway under a blanket.

Maddie frowned at him and then frowned at Frostbite, who had brought them here. "This will wear off, won't it?"

"If he gets a good night's sleep! But I'm afraid not even the Great One will be able to escape a hangover."

"Great…" Maddie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Then, a good night to you! Tomorrow, we will discuss serious matters. Until then, sleep easy!"

Finally alone again, for the first time in hours, Maddie sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. It was soft, covered in a mountain of blankets. She looked at her son, a few feet away, laying on his stomach only partially under a blanket, head missing the pillow entirely. Amazingly, snow was drifting down from the air over him.

"You're making it snow," Maddie whispered. She shook her head. When would any of this start to make sense?

Smiling, full of confusion and melancholy, Maddie pulled the blankets properly over her son and tucked him into bed. Danny's eyes cracked open and found her. He smiled.

"Night, Mom," he mumbled.

"Goodnight, sweetie," she told him. "I love you."

His eyes were closed again; it was a good thing, too. Unbidden, tears were rolling over Maddie's cheeks. Shocked, she wiped them away and decided she should sleep. And sleep she did – she was out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

* * *

_A/N: Yes. So, it's been years since I've actually **watched** Danny Phantom. And I remember next to nothing about Frostbite and the Far Frozen. So, I embraced my imagination and drew on things like Beowulf and How to Train Your Dragon while writing them. The result is this, which I'm rather pleased with. _

_An excerpt from a longer in-progress fic called, "The Ice King". _

_Next time - Danny's origin story, with a touch more Vlad. _

_T.F.C~_


	3. Legacy

_Warning - this one's a bit gory_

* * *

_**Legacy**_

"Oh please," the ghost who was once Vlad Masters sneered, dodging a shot of anti-ecto energy. "The 'Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle'? As if I'd let you get that far."

A particularly nasty bolt of violet ectoplasm blasted Jack Fenton back and away from the armored vehicle. The large man landed with a 'hoof!' on the bottom steps of the castle's entryway.

"Jack!" Maddie Fenton cried. She tried to get to her husband but was thwarted again by the clones that floated in front of her, dodging the majority of her attacks and taunting her. Part of her attention was also focused on her children, one of whom had plastered herself to the wall of the castle, partially hidden behind a half-column and watching the battle with wide, fearful eyes. But Maddie's youngest, her son, was nowhere to be found. It had been several minutes since Maddie had last seen Danny, and the fact she could not find him now was more terrifying than anything this ghost could do to her.

Not like Vlad actually wanted to hurt her. The man, in his delusion, seemed convinced that if Jack were 'out of the way', Maddie would run into his arms. As if.

What had Danny called him? A "seriously crazed-up fruitloop"? Maddie had scolded her son at the time, but now she understood that Danny had been right on the money. How was it Danny was the only one who saw that this present-day Vlad was not the man from their past? That something had snapped in his mind?

That cruel reality probably had something to do with his transformation into a ghost. When the shift had occurred, Maddie wanted at first to say that their friend was overshadowed, but the behavior of this ghost left Maddie thinking otherwise. It was as though the ghostly energy had entirely melded with the man, corrupting his mind in the process. The only question she had now was – How? How had this happened? Had Vlad done it to himself?

Maddie fired off another round of shots at the clones, all of which missed their targets. She could have screamed her frustration, but the most that she allowed to escape her throat was a low and dangerous growl.

Behind the wall of fanged smirks, Maddie's eye caught movement. For a brief moment, she let her eyes move to it, to discover her son emerging from behind the GAV. Slowly, carefully, her slight and gangly son was creeping alongside the Assault Vehicle toward its door. She could hardly believe it – Danny, _Danny_, who was constantly bullied at school, could barely pass his Physical Education courses, and had shown nothing but total terror toward ghosts in the past, was attempting to join the battle. It caused her heart to swell in pride. She knew that, if she and Jack could keep this ghost occupied, Danny would make it to his destination. They would be saved.

Her eyes had betrayed her. By the time she returned her gaze to Vlad's clones, they were already looking at Danny. Icy dread swirled through her gut. Two of the clones vanished; Maddie quickly activated the Ecto-Energy Scanner on her goggles, which could detect a ghost's ectosignature and would allow her to view ghosts even when they were invisible. The clones were speeding toward the GAV, on which the shields were currently and regrettably disabled. Within seconds, they had phased inside of it.

"Danny!" she called out, voice breaking in terror for her son. "Get away from there!"

Danny looked at her, expression bewildered. He was not going to move. Nor could she reach him in time. "Danny!" she screamed. He looked at the GAV beside him, and Maddie could see the dread creeping into his features. "Move!"

It was too late. A second later, the Ghost Assault Vehicle exploded, a blinding green-red-purple fireball of energy radiating outward, blasting Danny away and flinging parts of the machine upward and outward.

Maddie ran to her son where he had landed but drew up short when she caught sight of him. Danny lay on his back on the ground, arms and legs limp. His clothes were torn and burnt, as was his skin. Worst, however, was the long and jagged piece of shrapnel protruding from his middle. It was flat and about five inches wide; from what Maddie could judge, it had likely sliced through her son's stomach and liver.

All of a sudden, Danny's body flew up into the air. Vlad's ghost shimmered into existence behind him, one arm wrapped around Danny's chest. A quick survey told Maddie that he had dismissed his clones; her dying son was the only weapon he felt he needed now.

"Let him go!" Jack wheezed, suddenly beside her. Maddie saw a stream of blood trickling down the side of his face from a wound somewhere above his hairline. His orange jumpsuit was dirty and torn, and he favored one leg.

"Or what?" said Vlad. His echoing voice carried over the grounds with little effort. "You shoot me, and you risk hitting young Daniel. Although that may not matter a few minutes from now."

Danny coughed weakly, sending a shudder through his entire body. A second later, he spit up a mouthful of blood over his chin. His eyes, sky blue and filled with tears of pain, caught Maddie's for a second before closing.

"What do you want?" said Maddie, softly.

"You, my dear. I want _you_." Vlad smiled grimly, mouth a taught line. "You agree to stay here, with me, of your own volition, and I will not only save Daniel's life, I will also allow dear old _Jack_ to live. How about it, Maddie, my dear? Live here with me, and we can raise Daniel as our own. Jack can take that insufferable girl back to Amity Park, where I promise you they will never be threatened again by my hand."

Her mind tried to work quickly, searching for any way to free Danny and save him, but so far their attacks on Vlad had been entirely ineffectual, and every second she spent thinking meant that much more blood lost by her son. Maddie's eyes, heavy and sluggish with resignation, drifted to Jack's. Jack, looking utterly lost, nodded his acceptance without meeting Maddie's gaze. Maddie turned back to Vlad and growled, "Fine. But if Danny dies, nothing will stop me from destroying you."

A clone of Vlad's appeared at her side, wrapping an arm about her waist. "Then let us assure that does not happen," it said. A chill swept through Maddie's body, then a sensation much like the tingle of a limb falling asleep. A second before they moved, Maddie realized that she had been turned intangible. Her heart fluttered. They dived into the ground, and as easily as that, Maddie's family was gone.

For several seconds, they descended in total blackness. Maddie was uncomfortably aware of the layers of dirt and rock moving through her body, which, although mostly numb, could feel the material passing through it as something of a dull ache. She did not dare breathe, unsure if there was even air available to take in.

They emerged into a lab; Maddie blinked at the light, quickly trying to adjust her vision. As soon as their feet touched the floor, the clone holding her disintegrated. Maddie took in purplish surfaces, all shining under the green glow of a large Ghost Portal – a feature that Maddie noticed with no small amount of disgust.

A groan had her spinning around. The ghost was laying Danny, barely conscious, on a wheeled table. After he had done so, a ring of black light appeared at his feet and traveled up his body, transforming him once again into the semblance of Vlad Masters. He pushed the table and Danny over to the generator and the control panel connected to the Portal.

Maddie joined him at Danny's side. "What are you going to do?"

Vlad smirked down at her son's prone form; his hungry expression churned the acid in Maddie's stomach. "Think of it as… a father passing on a legacy." With swift but confident movements, Vlad retrieved a pair of sturdy, black cables. His fingers glowing with purple energy, he twisted off one end of each of the cables, revealing the copper wires underneath. He did not hesitate before jabbing the wires into Danny's wrists.

"What are you _doing_?" said Maddie and seized Vlad's hand.

He smiled, a cruel look, and pulled his hand intangibly through her own. Vlad began to tape the wires in place. "Saving Daniel's life, and more. After this, your son – or should I say _our_ son – will be stronger than any young man alive."

Shadows of understanding formed in Maddie's mind; her eyes widened in horror, and she shook her head. "No…"

"This is the only way to save him, my dear. You know as well as I, he is but _inches_ from death."

It was true. A pool of blood had formed under Danny's body, and his skin had taken on a gray pallor, under the parts that were charred red-black. His breaths came fast and shallow. Maddie could only hope he was not conscious to feel the pain.

A pair of scissors appeared before her. "You may help me by removing his clothes."

Shaking, Maddie accepted the blades and set to work, while Vlad did something at the control panel of the Portal. As delicately as possible, Maddie cut through Danny's clothes and cut them away where they were burned to his skin. He groaned and hissed at each tug; Maddie's heart ached to know he was still awake. No one should go through this – especially not Danny. He was too gentle for this.

Maddie could still remember the first time Danny had scraped a knee while playing outside. He had sat on the edge of their couch, crying and sniffling as Maddie cleaned the gravel out of his wound, washed it in peroxide, and bandaged it with a kiss. When the pain began to ease, he had wiped his eyes and smiled wetly at her. "Thank you, Mommy." Many times since then he had gotten hurt, and many times he had sought her to take the pain away.

Only now, she could not. Tears began to fall from her eyes, and she had to remove her hood and goggles to wipe them away. She realized only afterward that her hands were stained with Danny's blood.

"Okay," she told Vlad, voice flat. "It's done."

"Then let us begin." She saw that the cables were now connected to the panel, and Vlad's fingers were clutched around a heavy switch. "I would back away if I were you, my dear."

Reluctantly, Maddie took several steps away from the table, eyes never leaving her son. A ghostly clone appeared beside the table. It gripped the piece of shrapnel – the only thing preventing Danny from completely bleeding out – and turned the metal intangible, removing it immediately afterward. Vlad's eyes narrowed slightly, his mouth twitched, and in one fluid movement, he flipped the switch.

The green face of the Portal flickered, the cables danced until they were taut, a hum filled the air, and crackling green energy, like bolts of lightning, rippled across Danny's skin while waves of green light pulsed like blood through his veins. His body was wracked by violent spasms and clattered against the cart he lay upon. The metallic smell of ectoplasm filled the air.

Danny's eyes shot wide open, glowing with green fire that his irises only loosely contained; it spilled into the whites of his eyes and into the open air. His fingers curled into claws, and his nails scrabbled at the table, breaking in the process. Though his jaws were clamped shut, a scream was trying to rip through his lips, rumbling around in his throat and chest. Maddie watched as from the roots Danny's hair turned from black to shocking snow white.

It took all of Maddie's self control to not launch herself at Vlad and force him to stop. Her heart felt as though it was being shredded into a thousand pieces. She clenched her fists tightly, set her jaw, and tried to think of nothing, feel nothing, until it was over.

When the blood oozing from Danny's back and stomach turned from red to glowing, ectoplasmic green, only then did Vlad switch off the connection. The humming and crackling died away, but Danny's muscles continued to spasm. Maddie rushed to his side. Her fingers were torn between whether to clutch at her son or hold off for fear of hurting him further. Trembling, she brushed the white hair off of his forehead and cradled one side of his face in her hand. Through the material of her glove, she could feel the icy chill of his skin. "I'm so sorry, Danny…"

His eyes had been absorbed wholly by glowing green. As the energy ebbed, the green waned, his pupils and whites resurfacing, sliced through by bright emerald irises. They saw her briefly. "Mom," Danny whispered, before his eyes unfocused and drifted closed.

It took Maddie a moment to realize that her son's body was continuing to change. Where it was cut, scraped, or burnt, ectoplasm was bubbling to the surface. The wound to his abdomen stopped dripping and instead seemed to reabsorb the ectoplasm that had already fallen to the table. Danny's body became a shifting mass of the gooey, glowing substance, which shortly afterward retreated again under his skin. When this had finished, there was not a mark left on him.

Danny lay on the table before her. His skin was pale, but entirely unblemished – even scars she knew he should have had had faded. His hair was still bright white, and his entire body emitted its own luminescence, while having turned somewhat translucent – she swore she could see the table through his arms and legs. He had stilled entirely, which allowed Maddie to see that he had also stopped breathing.

He was a ghost.

A sob rose in her throat; she swallowed it back down. "You lied," she told Vlad, not taking her eyes off of Danny. "You killed him."

She was surprised to hear the man scoff. "Hardly," said Vlad. "If this… _procedure_ succeeded – and I have no reason to doubt that it has – Daniel has become what is known colloquially as a 'halfa'."

"Halfa?" repeated Maddie, the word foreign on her tongue.

"A half-ghost, half-human hybrid. Until today, I was the only one in existence, and until recently, I could not even have hoped to create another like myself. It is impossible without a working Ghost Portal, you see, as the transformation requires the very _stuff_ of the ghostly universe to succeed. I suppose I should thank you and Jack – if you had not completed your Portal, I would not have been able to steal your blueprint to make my own."

So _that_ was why he had a Portal.

"Why would you do this?"

Vlad's eyes flicked to her and studied her face. "Why? If you did not notice, ghosts have the uncanny ability to heal themselves. It is a power that halfas can access just as easily. Even after the _mortal wound_ that Daniel suffered, he was able to recover from it in a matter of minutes. But perhaps you mean, why would I want to create another hybrid?" He paused, and his eyes fell down to Danny. "I suppose I thought that twenty years alone was far too long."

"You've been like this for twenty years?" said Maddie, voice incredulous.

Vlad smirked bitterly, face twitching once. "Ever since that little accident in college that hospitalized me and ruined my life. I would have been _fine _– better than fine, really – had not that oaf Jack ruined the Portal's filter and given me _Ecto Acne_. It was only due to my regenerative powers that I did not die from it."

The light around Danny's body shimmered, and a ring of white light formed at his waist. It separated in two directions, and as each traveled the length of Danny's body, the luminescence vanished and his color and solidity returned. When the lights disappeared, her son drew in a shaky breath.

"And now, I have satisfied my end of the deal. I hope you still plan on upholding yours."

Maddie stared, almost disbelievingly, at Danny for a long time before she answered. "You want me to abandon my family and live here with you."

"Daniel will be here as well. He'll need me in order to understand his new body – a boon I never had. And of course you will be able to continue your work. Here, you will be closer to ghosts than ever before, than you could have ever _dreamed_ of. Imagine how much you will accomplish with me at your side and my resources at your disposal."

"And what about Jack? And my daughter? Am I not supposed to see them again?"

"We can arrange for Jasmine to visit; but no, I cannot allow that imbecile to remain in your life. He stole you from me once, and I shan't let it happen again. I think that is a fair trade for the life of your son, don't you?"

"If I refuse?" said Maddie softly.

Vlad narrowed his eyes and frowned deeply. "Then Daniel's life is forfeit, and trust me, there is no being more vulnerable than a newly born halfa. You do not know my strength, nor do you know my resources, but believe me when I say that I would track him down no matter where you hid him, and I would crush both his heart and energy core with my bare hands. Remember, too, that Jack's life is also part of my deal. By returning to your husband, you would be signing his death certificate."

Vlad's frown softened as he looked at Danny. "I am not eager to kill Daniel, though. I look forward to raising him, like the son I never had."

_This man is insane, _thought Maddie, shuddering. _But right now, he is stronger than any of us. There is no way we could fight him and win. _

Maddie lowered her head in submissive resignation. "Very well," she said, her voice soft. She turned away. Unseen to their captor, her eyes gleamed with determination. _Know this, Vlad – I will not rest until I discover a way to defeat you and bring my son home._

* * *

_A/N: I honestly forgot that I had a one-shot collection going. LOL. Whoops. _

_I wrote this back in 2016 or so, a plot bunny (among many) that didn't end up going anywhere. I don't know if I actually like it or not. The whole 'wires stabbed into Danny's wrists' thing was inspired by a bizarrely wonderful Korean movie called "I'm a Cyborg, But That's Okay" - but I didn't care for that detail anymore when I reread this. It screamed "mad scientist" in a Doctor Frankenstein sort of way, and I was left to wonder, would Vlad do something that was so crude and unlikely to work? *shrug* I don't know. But here it is. Bloop. _

_ Next time - a visit to the "Hospital of Horror!" _


End file.
